Cinders and Smoke
by ncfan
Summary: In the ruined Havens, Galadriel finds the Ring of Barahir, or, as it will always be, her brother's ring.


I own nothing.

* * *

No one was sure if the fires that had burned much of the Havens had been set intentionally or not, but these days, there was little Galadriel would put past her cousins, and it wouldn't surprise her to learn that they had been set on purpose. They were filled with madness, her cousins. Some would call them villains; Galadriel knew that madmen of the sort that the remaining sons of Fëanor happened to be were far more dangerous than any villain or scoundrel in Beleriand.

No one was sure if the fires had been set intentionally or not, and no one on the Isle of Balar had seen the plumes of smoke rising in the sky until it was too late. Gil-Galad had immediately mobilized anyone able and willing to make the journey across the bay into the Havens of Sirion, determined to render any aid he could, but by the time they got across the bay and were able to come up the river and into the city, there was very little left. Half of Sirion was a charred, burnt-out husk; the white flagstones were burned black. There were corpses strewn about the streets, dead of enemy soldiers or of flames, and a few dozen terrified, trembling survivors, who told the tale.

The Sons of Fëanor had come to Sirion, demanding that the Sindarin Queen Elwing relinquish the Silmaril that she possessed. The Lord Eärendil was away; no one knew where he was nor had any way to contact him. The two youngest of the four remaining brothers, Amrod and Amras, fell in battle, but Maedhros and Maglor survived the day. The twin sons of Elwing and Eärendil had been taken hostage. No one knew what had become of Elwing, nor what had become of her Silmaril.

Gil-Galad, young and hasty as he was, wanted to pursue them straight away. "If we start now, we could still catch them," he argued. "We could still save Elrond and Elros, and perhaps Elwing as well, if she was taken captive as well."

Celeborn was of a like mind, and Galadriel knew that while it was on account of Elwing and her boys that he was giving his support to Gil-Galad's plan, he wanted retribution for what was done at Menegroth. Different groups of Edhil, she was learning, had different definitions for exactly what constituted Kinslaying, and there were plenty of those who believed that it was not Kinslaying to slay those who had already committed such crime. Such Edhil believed that Kinslayers had cut themselves off from their race, so thoroughly that they could no longer be called Edhil at all.

But that could not be. "I do not think that would be wise," Galadriel interjected, bringing the plan the two neri were devising between to an abrupt halt. The wind made the hastily-erected tent the three of them were meeting in shake and quiver.

She was met with the perplexed stares of her two companions, Gil-Galad and Celeborn both. Despite that the former was the High King of the Noldor, and also Galadriel's nephew, it was Celeborn who spoke first, perhaps because he knew her better, and knew better how to approach her. "Why not?"

At that, Galadriel looked to Gil-Galad, a bitter taste on her tongue—she could not believe that it was _she _who was advocating such a plan, that it was she who was advocating that they leave two tiny boys, and possibly their mother as well, to the mercy of their kidnappers. "Do we really have the resources to chase Maedhros, Maglor, _and _their hostages all the way across Beleriand?" she asked quietly.

The young King faltered. His hand, still pressed over the small dot marked as 'Amon Ereb' on the map on the table, curled into a fist. He looked away, setting his jaw. "No," he admitted, "we don't." What could have been easily mistaken for a spark of fire glinted in his eyes. "But Aunt Galadriel, we can't just abandon them!"

Celeborn sighed. He rubbed his forehead, leaning back in his chair. "She's right," he muttered, a look just as bitter as the taste in Galadriel's mouth on his face. "We can not follow them, nor attempt a rescue of Elwing or her children. Not right now. We don't even have enough soldiers to properly protect Balar in case of the Enemy's attack."

They fell into a bleak, uneasy silence. Galadriel didn't know whether to be relieved that Celeborn had sided with her, or alarmed that even he was giving up his last living kin to those who had kidnapped and could easily kill them. She had never imagined that he would do such a thing, even in the most dire straits, but then, she had never imagined that she would find herself here, thinking about a kidnapped nís and her kidnapped sons, held hostage by her only surviving cousins.

"What I just don't understand," she wondered aloud, meeting neither her nephew nor her husband's eyes, "is why Maedhros and Maglor would take them hostage. I always imagined that once they retrieved a Silmaril, they would see no further need for bloodshed, that they would try to leave the place they had been besieging. They're not the sort to take hostages, those two."

"Perhaps Elwing managed to escape, and they don't have the Silmaril after all," Gil-Galad supplied hopefully.

"Or perhaps they were afraid that we would take revenge, if not for fear of harming our own Queen and Princes," Celeborn remarked sourly.

Galadriel laughed harshly. "My cousins? It would not occur to them that we might enact retribution." _But you do not know them nearly so well as you thought you did, _a small voice in her mind reminded her. _How can you be sure that you know their minds now? _"It would not occur to them to fear retribution. They are too proud. They would meet our challenges with force. No, I think it is more likely that Gil-Galad is correct. Elwing likely escaped. I can only assume that Maedhros and Maglor have taken her sons to attempt to force her to surrender her Silmaril to them."

Celeborn's face creased in tired worry. "So where has she gone, then?"

Galadriel could not say.

The day wore on, much warmer than it should have been for this time of year thanks to the fires that had been burning, and Galadriel wandered the half-ruined city of Sirion. Gil-Galad and those who had followed him from Balar would be here for a few days yet, ferrying the survivors and what belongings they had salvaged back to the refugee camps on the island in the bay. They had only been able to spare two ships; Círdan had stayed behind on the island in case of an attack.

This was the first time that Galadriel had ever moved within the crumbling walls of the Havens of Sirion. She and Celeborn had come here after the sack of Menegroth, only for Galadriel herself to be turned away on account of her close kin ties with the Kinslayers. She had moved on to Balar, and Celeborn, though he was permitted inside the city, had followed her. He had never come to Sirion before today either; he refused to go to any city that denied his wife entry. From what Galadriel understood, this had once been a city that could almost be called beautiful. Now, the odor of salt and brine mingled with ash and acrid smoke. Many of the buildings she walked past stood like charred skeletons, framed against the sky. The corpses were festering in their armored shells. This place could never be called beautiful.

She walked, and walked on. No one tried to stop her. Everyone recognized this tall nís, recognized her gold-silver hair and glinting green eyes. Galadriel wandered the streets, in the eerie silence interrupted only by the occasional thin sob or broken wail.

_The Ambarussa have fallen this day. And Maitimo and Makalaurë yet live? What shall they live to do? Commit more heinous acts? Kill more of their kin, and not even in their own defense, but over worthless jewels and grudges and hate? What has become of the boys taken captive by them? What has become of their mother, if she too is held against her will?_

_How far you have fallen, my cousins. Artanis your kinswoman, she recognizes you no longer._

Galadriel used to believe that her cousins would not sink to such a level. They had killed at Alqualondë, but so had she, so she could hardly hold that against them. She had told herself that her cousins, Fëanor's sons, had acted on the behest of their father and, if left to their own devices, would not commit such a monstrous act again. They were her kin, after all, and when, after long decades, she had come to make her peace with their abandonment of her and the rest in Araman, she accepted that while Fëanor had succumbed to madness in his final months of life, she could not blame his sons for what he had done. They were not the same as their father.

But then, they had come to Menegroth, and Galadriel came to know better. Her cousins were their father's sons. Three of them had met their deaths in the caves at the hands of the Sindar, but it wasn't enough. She had thought she knew them, but she didn't. They had come, had slain so many, slain the King Dior, slain Nimloth who was Celeborn's niece, whom Galadriel had known since she was born. Her husband had lost nearly his entire family, and Galadriel had lost the trust of many of the people she had lived among for nearly five hundred years.

And yet…

And yet there was still indecision, where there absolutely should not have been any.

The sun was going down as Galadriel reached the massive administrative building, that which she knew had been called a palace by this city's inhabitants. It was virtually untouched by the flames, besides a few scorch marks on the outer walls. Galadriel slipped inside, and began to look about, to see what she could find.

In truth, Galadriel wasn't sure what she was looking for, or if she was truly searching for anything at all. Perhaps she would find the Silmaril Lúthien and Beren had stolen from Morgoth somewhere in the wreckage. Galadriel remembered it well, from when her uncle had had it, then her grandfather, then Lúthien and Thingol and Dior. She would have recognized it on first sight, and it would be shining like a beacon in the red dusk anyways.

Or perhaps she would find Elwing hiding somewhere in the eerily silent palace, unwilling to believe that her attackers had left, and that she was safe. But how was Galadriel to know Elwing when she saw her. She had last laid eyes on the Sindarin Queen when she was but a girl of three years. It still astounded her that Elwing could have twin boys of six years, for in the eyes of the Edhil Elwing was still a child in years herself. Galadriel remembered her as a tiny, white-skinned child with black curls and wide eyes, but she would likely have grown into someone Galadriel no longer recognized. It was unlikely that Elwing would recognize _her _at all. And the longer Galadriel spent in this palace, the more she realized that it was occupied only by the dead.

The dead were indeed the only ones she encountered on her journeys up and down the halls, up and down the staircases. The bodies of the slain lay crumpled still, faces fixed in expressions of panic and terror. Some of them had their arms outstretched, and from the right angle, Galadriel could imagine that they were reaching out to her, begging for deliverance. They hadn't found it.

On the top floor, the silence became nearly overwhelming. It was so overwhelming, in fact, that when Galadriel heard the whistling of the wind, she hastened in the direction she'd heard it coming from, thankful for any reprieve from the silence. She came to a long corridor, and saw at the very end of it an open window, curtains rustling in the breeze. It was the only open window in the palace that Galadriel had seen, and the shadows that billowed and puckered beneath the curtains seemed ominously alive.

A glint of green fire near the base of the window caught her eye.

Galadriel nearly ran to the window, and bending down near it she found, sitting on the floor, a ring. A ring fashioned in the likeness of twin serpents, whose eyes were emeralds. Their heads met beneath a crown of golden flowers; one upheld it, and the other devoured.

Galadriel knew this ring.

This was her brother's ring.

Once upon a time, of course, it had belonged to her father, but from the tales she had been told, Arafinwë had given it to his firstborn son when he came of age. _"This is yours now, my son," _he had said. _"This is the symbol of our house. Never forget it. Never forget who you are."_

For as long as she could remember, Galadriel remembered the eyes of the serpents of the ring glinting on Finrod's hand. It had fascinated her as a baby, he said; she would try to take the ring off of his finger, and even tried to gnaw on it when she was still teething. Finrod had taken it with him when they had crossed over into Ennor, and had worn it as the official badge of his house.

But then, he had given it away so freely to a human who had saved his life during the Bragollach. Despite having had ample opportunity to observe the folly of swearing oaths, Finrod swore an oath to Barahir son of Bregor, promising friendship to him and his house in perpetuity, and that if he or any of his descendants ever needed Finrod's aid, all they would need to do was present the ring he gave them, the serpent ring.

It passed from Barahir, to Beren, to Dior, and finally to Elwing, who seemed to have abandoned it here today. Elwing's sons were in the clutches of their mother's enemies, and could not claim it. _So is this now to be mine?_

There were many who called this the Ring of Barahir. To Galadriel, it would only ever be her brother's ring, whom he had gifted to an Adan, along with making a well-meaning but still foolish promise to the man. This was Finrod's. It was all that was left of Finrod, all that she could have left of him. Galadriel stood, back tall, and held Finrod's ring in the palm of her outstretched hand.

For one moment, she was Artanis again, with the weight and wisdom of the last five hundred years gone from her. Thinking that she was wise, but having little knowledge in truth, and far too much pride. Desiring not simply to rule, but to conquer. She was Artanis, unconstrained by a world that in many places no longer accepted her own language, and forced her to speak a language that, even after five hundred years, still felt unnatural on her tongue. For one moment, she was Artanis again, the daughter of a family that was still whole.

But the moment passed, and she was Galadriel once more. There could be no denying the passage of time, and no denying the truth that the only way this ring could be hers, was because her brother, all of her brothers, were dead. Pride had cost them all dearly.

Galadriel slid the ring onto her finger and went back outside. When she returned to the camp, Celeborn and Gil-Galad both saw the ring. Celeborn had to recognize it; how often had he seen it on Dior's finger? And Gil-Galad, even if he had not seen it before, seemed to know what it was. But neither of them said a word.

* * *

Ambarussa—Amrod and Amras  
Maitimo—Maedhros  
Makalaurë—Maglor  
Artanis—Galadriel  
Arafinwë—Finarfin

Edhil—Elves (singular: Edhel) (Sindarin)  
Neri—men (singular: nér)  
Nís—woman (plural: nissi)  
Ennor—Middle-Earth (Sindarin)  
Adan—Man (plural: Edain) (Sindarin)


End file.
